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Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

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Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#641

Post by jasoncartwright »

bb123 wrote: post #622
alibarber wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah - I was getting excited about having booked an EV for my Christmas holiday visiting family in the UK (with Hertz). Fortunately researching charging knocked some sense into me and I switched back to a ICE vehicle. - Even though I was staying in their house there was no way I could charge it without buying an expensive cable, or risking some cheap crap from Amazon (blow up the house or the rental car perhaps?) - E…

> Every damn thing needs an app (and an account and registration - fun if you don't actually live in the country in question). Seriously just put up a charger and a contactless payment reader. Imagine if every petrol pump needed an app to start? May as well go back to having to put pound coins in a meter... This actually isn't true. It is law in the UK that every public charger must have a contactless reader on it. M…

I think your knowledge may be a little out of date. I charge my (non-Tesla) EV at Tesla Superchargers and pay 30p/kWh at the excellent Ionity (350kW!) chargers.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#642

Post by cik »

Spare_account wrote: post #607
cik wrote: post #604

Here, the local car sharing service had two plans. The first was pick and and drop off wherever you want cars, the second pick up and return cars. The former were electric, the latter gas powered. The electric cars were never powered up. Even when parked beside a charger, people simply wouldn't plug them in. When they did, the cars would charge for lengthy periods of time, and hence be unavailable. Gas won. Despite e…

When I return a gas powered hire car, I'm required to return it with the same amount of fuel as I picked it up with. I sign a contract that states I'll be charged a higher-than-pump price to top up the car if I breach this requirement. Does the same (or an equivalent, eg: Plug it in to charge upon return) requirement not apply to electric cars?

Car rental is different than auto share here. Car rentals work as you depicted. Auto share, is not that.

When they tried this with the pay per minute vehicles (both electric and gas) the reality is the time to fill electric made them completely untenable.

They also tried battery swaps, that was truly disastrous.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#643

Post by moffkalast »

light_hue_1 wrote: post #614
rdtsc wrote: post #564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not a knock on EV's really, mostly the charging infrastructure and the rental experience. But why not knock on them? They had a lot of promise and a lot of hype when they were being touted as simpler and cheaper and just overall better. Somehow they ended up being more expensive, unless we're talking about Chinese brands, more costly to insure, a longer time to charge than a corresponding IC car and incompatible ch…

If you have a Tesla the charging story is wonderful. The car finds chargers on it's own. It shows you exactly what's available at each charger. Hardly anything is ever broken. EVs are far easier and more convenient than gas cars. It's the non Tesla infrastructure that just sucks.

Now if only there was an EV that combined tesla's charging infrastructure with an actual quality car at a reasonable price, that would be great.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#644

Post by closewith »

robertlagrant wrote: post #616
brnt wrote: post #580

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im in Europe, so that doesnt matter. And even if they had then here top, they'd be useless to me, because Teslas are too large for me.

Maybe you'd be a 2025 Model 2[0] customer? [0] https://www.whatcar.com/news/tesla-model-2/n25636

It really is a shame that Musk has tarnished the Tesla brand so much, because this looks like a great car.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#645

Post by Balero »

brnt wrote: post #554
b112 wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is why h2 is the answer. h2 that is shown to work, regardless of all the hyperbole and reckless claims battery fans make.

Storage of H2 is a challenge in space and weight constrained devices such as cars. Plus, any well to wheels analysis shows H2 coming up behind the alternatives in efficiency. There aren't claims, these are physical constraints. For heavy vehicles such as trucks and busses (and trains) there might be a market, provided the H2 is an otherwise unused byproduct of some process and needn't be produced, but for the majorit…

I've seen a very good take that it is the ideal renewable fuel for large machinery such as farming or construction equipment. Batteries wouldn't work due to the cost and charging time (when you're using them you need them for long stretches), but weight (and therefore some of the complex/heavy containment). These places (at least in the UK) have their own diesel logistics infrastructure already.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#646

Post by Xenoamorphous »

dcchambers wrote: post #453

Im bullish on EVs but I feel like rental cars are one of the worst places for the current generation of EVs. EVs are best for the types of driving we do on a day-to-day basis. Short commutes in areas we know well. Charge at home over night and 95% of the year you never worry about charging. Renting a car means I'm usually either driving long distances or im somewhere new and I don't know about the local charging infr…

> Charge at home over night

If you have a private garage. I live in a (non-US) city where there's shared garages (those who do have a garage, a lot of them just park outside) which are old and not always have power sockets. And even if they do, I don't think you're entitled to use them to charge your car. And do EVs work with standard power sockets, or needs some special stuff? I've never driven an EV.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#647

Post by toyg »

starbugs wrote: post #605
Sebb767 wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your link: > The anti-subsidy investigation covers battery-powered cars from China, so also includes non-Chinese brands made there, such as Tesla (TSLA.O), Renault (RENA.PA) and BMW (BMWG.DE). It is also unusual in that it is brought by the European Commission itself, rather than in response to an industry complaint. This does seem like more of a political play rather than China actually trying to flood western…

> This does seem like more of a political play Agreed. That's why I added "At least that's what the EU says." The EU is clearly whining because the Chinese local market imploded, so they are now exporting more of their cars into the EU markets. Yet, articles like the linked one make it unclear to me what part of EV production is really subsidized and what part is not. I think it would be advisable to be cautious abou…

There might be more than reflexive whining at play, considering the review will include European manufacturers. The Commission might be trying to gear up towards some sort of EU-wide subsidy program to match the Chinese one. It's the sort of thing that individual EU governments are explicitly banned from, by Common Market rules; but when the push comes from some of the biggest German and French businesses, a solution has to be found.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#648

Post by toyg »

jasoncartwright wrote: post #641
bb123 wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Every damn thing needs an app (and an account and registration - fun if you don't actually live in the country in question). Seriously just put up a charger and a contactless payment reader. Imagine if every petrol pump needed an app to start? May as well go back to having to put pound coins in a meter... This actually isn't true. It is law in the UK that every public charger must have a contactless reader on it. M…

I think your knowledge may be a little out of date. I charge my (non-Tesla) EV at Tesla Superchargers and pay 30p/kWh at the excellent Ionity (350kW!) chargers.

There is exactly one Ionity charger for the whole of Greater Manchester, with the other nearest ones being more than an hour drive in two directions.

Not a realistic suggestion for anyone not living in London.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#649

Post by toyg »

xwolfi wrote: post #500
paganel wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a knock on EVs as longs as the missing/lacking/very deficient charging infrastructure is what literally makes the EVs work or fail. No suitable (and fast) charging means EVs are meant to fail, and deservedly so.

Yeah but petrol cars weren't serviced as well as now when they started (arguably with a much longer range per much faster "charge", maybe). EVs are probably going to be a good idea, it'll just take time. Imagine in 1995 saying emails will never replace sending around documents at the office, just because there wasn't any infra yet. Wait a bit, or even help !

ICE cars had an advantage though: if you ran out of petrol, you could hitch to the closest garage, fill up a tank, and you were back in business.

With EVs it's always going to require a tow, which is a nightmare experience I don't recommend to anyone.

Re: Hertz to sell 20k EVs in shift back to gas-powered cars

#650

Post by AdamN »

culturestate wrote: post #640
light_hue_1 wrote: post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If by "majority" you mean, a small minority, then you're spot on! All you have to do is look at the census. 2/3rds of households have a garage or carport. If you add to this the number of people with private parking, that's like 80+% of people who can have chargers subsidized by the state. It's always important to look at numbers before you get trapped in your bubble.

> If by "majority" you mean, a small minority, then you're spot on! ... It's always important to look at numbers before you get trapped in your bubble. Speaking of bubbles, I wrote "majority of the western world, " which admittedly surprisingly stretches beyond America. Two-thirds of households in, say, Berlin absolutely do not have carports, garages, or private parking.

Charging infrastructure in Berlin is fine - I had an EV for over a year and charged on the street no problem. The two major caveats are that you really need a card specifically for paying the charging networks (not a credit card which is a major hassle) and road trips are more difficult than they would be with an ICE car.
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